The Due de Gramont has replied to Count Bismarck's last
charges by what virtually comes to saying, "We didn't do it, but if we did, you are as bad." And that seems to be very near the mark. The Due de Gramont explicitly asserts that Count Bis- marck said to Prince Napoleon, "You desire an impossible thing; you wish to take the Rhenish provinces which are German. Why do you not annex Belgium, where the people have the same origin, the same religion, and the same language as yourselves ? I have already caused that to be mentioned to the Emperor. If he entered into my views, we would assist him to take'Belgium. As for myself, if I were the master, and I were not hampered by the obstinacy of the
King, it would be already done." General Tiirr's confession comes to the same thing, and though he is said to be a mere agent of the Emperor's, there seems very little doubt that Count Bis- marck really did hold out to the Emperor the prospect of his cordial connivance in any plunder that did not touch German soil. Germany and France stand in very different positions in relation to this war. But hardly so the German and French diplomatists.
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